The only downside to Steve Lovelace's Corporate States of America map, showing the most famous brands founded in each of the 50 states, was that there wasn't enough liquor involved. Only two were alcohol brands: Coors and Anheuser-Busch. Thrillist has decided to rectify that with its Red, White & Booze map, "plotting the biggest/most high-profile liquor or beer companies" in each of the 50 states. Check out it out above, and see a much larger PDF on the Thrillist site. Let the debates begin. First of all, why not Magic Hat in Vermont?
Not pictured and/or hard to read:
Alaska: Alaskan Brewing Hawaii: Kona Vermont: Hill Farmstead New Hampshire: Smuttynose Connecticut: Willimantic Rhode Island: Narragansett New Jersey: Jagermeister Delaware: Dogfish Head Maryland: Flying Dog
Downton Abbey is hopping on the branded beverage bandwagon (alongside Breaking Bad, The Simpsons, Game of Thrones and some other shows), but in a unique way that's sure to make the program's fans even more insufferable. Wines That Rock and Dulong Grands Vins de Bordeaux will be joint producing Downton-branded Bordeaux Clarets and Blancs, with the blessing of the show's North American licensing company. The grapes used will be "grown on the same vines and from the same soil as the era depicted in Downton Abbey," they say, because authenticity is very important when dealing with a TV program about people who never existed. It's a really good show, granted, but still, this is getting a little ridiculous. At least it's in better taste than the Breaking Bad beer.
I'm not sure I'd swipe my passport through a vending machine, regardless of the reward, but perhaps I would if I were Canadian and needed a beer badly enough. Molson Canadian recently visited several European cities and placed fully stocked beer fridges in public places there. The catch? The fridges could be opened only by scanning a Canadian passport. Footage from the sites was then cut into the 90-second online ad below, from ad agency Rethink and director Jonty Toosey of Partners Film. A :30 broke on TV during the Stanley Cup Finals. The campaign also brings back the classic tagline, "I am Canadian."
It's a fun idea, and continues the trend toward more installation-based public branding and entertainment stunts. Coca-Cola has always done that very well, of course, but these days everyone's trying it—from Hot Wheels to those crazy Fantastic Delites stunts. Beer fridges that won't open are particularly galling, of course, and wondrous when they finally relent—as we learned last year with the JWT office fridge that only opens when everyone has done their time sheets.
Making-of video and credits for the Molson effort below.
CREDITS Title: "The Beer Fridge" Client: Molson Canadian
Agency: Rethink Creative Directors: Aaron Starkman, Chris Staples, Dré Labre, Ian Grais Associate Creative Director: Mike Dubrick Art Directors: Joel Holtby, Vince Tassone, Christian Buer Writers: Mike Dubrick, Aaron Starkman, Matt Antonello, Dave Thornhill Account Director: Ashley Eaton Broadcast Producer: Clair Galea
Production Company: Partners Film Director: Jonty Toosey Executive Producer: Aerin Barnes Line Producer: Neil Bartley Director of Photography: Bruce Jackson
Postproduction: Rooster Post Executive Producer: Melissa Kahn Editor: Marc Langley Assistant Editor: Nick Greaves
Postroduction: Fort York VFX Music, Sound Design: RMW Music Producer, Composer: Steven MacKinnon
Would you like an NHL championship with that? Leo Burnett in Chicago found an appetizing way to support the Blackhawks during their Stanley Cup run this summer, creating a special bus-shelter display for McDonald's featuring custom hockey sticks shaped like french fries. The copy reads, simply, "Go Blackhawks." (McDonald's may have had something of a rooting interest—the company is based in Oak Brook, Ill., after all.) As part of the campaign, the chain will donate hockey sticks (though not the actual ones from the ad) to local youth hockey programs.
"Feed me, or I will shoot you and burn down your establishment." How many times have I shouted that at Carl's Jr. and still had to wait for service? The line doesn't work any better for the cowboy in Rhett & Link's commercial for Frontier Wok, a Wild West-themed Chinese eatery in Burbank, Calif. The guy winds up on the losing end of a quick-draw food shootout with the restaurant's manager, felled by the Kung POW! chicken. "That is some tasty Kung POW! chicken. I'm glad I had my last meal at the Frontier Wok," the cowboy says as he expires. Frontier Wok's entrees probably aren't deadly in real life, though the place does promise "Chinese food so good, it'll blow you away," so you never know. The spot sends up both Westerns and Asian martial-arts movies with out-of-sync dubbed dialogue, which is horribly cliched at this point, but still funny. At the end, the manager rides off into the sunset on a small pony, determined no doubt to set up a franchise in the British Isles.
Ad agency Jung von Matt/Neue Elbe and directing duo Alex & Steffen stage an orgy of CGI insanity, referencing various effects-driven fantasy blockbusters from the past 20 years, in this lighthearted yet heart-pounding German spot branding Fanta as "The official sponsor of FANTAsy." When a giant Transformers-type cyber-terror lays siege to a desert castle, a pro wrestler gets catapulted into the fray, bouncing harmlessly off the bot's metal hide, and a plucky princess slides down a saurian's back to save the day. Turns out the action—superbly staged and worth several viewings—is taking place in the imagination of a little girl at a family picnic. The intricate sandcastle they've built sits nearby, its parapets manned by action figures. Some might say it's a sad commentary that a kid's imagination is fueled by soda-pop-culture/Hollywood hype, though in our media-saturated age, this seems about right, and the melee she envisions provides more thrills than most mega-budget flicks can manage. Good thing they didn't probe her brother's imagination. That little devil would've used the robot to conquer the world and hogged all the Fanta for himself!
Say what you want about Domino's (it's an abomination unto the Lord), but it has one of the better branded Pinterest projects I've seen in a while—Second Hand Logos. Since Domino's recently redesigned its logo, Crispin Porter + Bogusky got to thinking about what happens to a company's old signage, clothing, store materials, etc. So, the agency commissioned 10 artists to make stuff with old Domino's employee shirts, pizza boxes and other company ephemera. Lots of it is for sale, and Domino's is being gracious enough not to demand a cut of the artists' sales, which is pretty cool of the company. More of the work will roll out in the coming days. Doesn't make this any less accurate, but this is a good example of effective consumer outreach.
Back in January, Red Robin basked in the glow of good publicity after the manager of one of its North Carolina restaurants comped a pregnant patron $11.50 and added a good-luck message to her bill. Aww! The coverage this week, however, is closer to aww-ful, as the chain is taking heat from vegetarians for a commercial touting its 24 burger options. The 15-second spot includes the line, "We even have a garden burger … just in case your teenage daughter is going through a phase." The actress's overdone delivery, probably intended as conspiratorial, comes off as condescending. Now, you'd think vegetarians would be too scrawny and weak to kick up a fuss, but they flocked to social media (where else?) and accused the chain of being disrespectful and callous, demanding that it pull the ad and/or apologize. On Monday, Red Robin's communications chief, Kevin Caulfield, told the Huffington Post that the ad "is planned to be out of rotation and no longer on the air very soon." The controversy will have no lasting impact, and I expect any ill will to vanish as soon as the commercial does. It's not like the chain's employees posted videos of themselves licking garden burgers or sticking their toes in the lettuce—yet. Behave, burger people! See a few more spots from the campaign after the jump.
red robin says it offers a gardenburger "just in case your teenage daughter is going through a phase." how many groups did it just insult?
If you are male, the moment you have a child you are required to drastically alter your sense of humor in ways both profound and irreversible. Where before you were witty and sharp, you must now become broad and pun-heavy. This is mostly so you can embarrass your offspring, although, counterintuitively, it is also guaranteed to make them love you more. (The whole thing is probably evolutionary in some complex way.) This Sunday, for Father's Day, Heineken will celebrate this oddity of the human condition with a #dadjokes campaign from Wieden + Kennedy in New York. You submit your cheesiest dad joke with that hashtag to @Heineken_US, and the brewer will meme-ify its favorites—posting your joke next to stock photos of awesome dads through the ages. Heineken will add its own #dadjokes throughout the day, too, and all of them will be archived on a special #dadjokes Tumblr. Join in Sunday, and make it the most groan-inducing site on the Internet. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Heineken Project: #dadjokes Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York Executive Creative Directors: Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal Creative Directors: Erik Norin, Eric Steele Creatives: Mike Vitiello, Jessica Abercrombie Designer: Cory Everett Account Team: Patrick Cahill, Jacqueline Ventura Brand Strategist: Jeremy Daly Art Producer: Michelle Chant Interactive Producers: Mutaurwa Mapondera, Victoria Krueger Director of Integrated Production: Lora Schulson Director of Interactive Production: Brandon Kaplan Business Affairs: Quentin Perry
I doubt I'm alone in believing that Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman's mustache) is one of the best characters in TV history. The folks at O'Charley's seem to be such fans that they've created their own "spokes-patron" who seems to be an homage to television's favorite steak-devouring Libertarian. The "Brock Roland" character appears in two new spots for O'Charley's. In one, Roland introduces himself by saying he'll gamble on push-up contests and love, but not on steak. In the second spot, he adds an order of chicken fingers to his cowboy sirloin, which might get a nod of respect from Swanson, who likes to order his steaks in threes and once asked a diner for "all the bacon and eggs you have." Check out one of the O'Charley's spots below and another after the jump, where you'll also find a few of our favorite Ron Swanson food moments.
The moon isn't made of cheese. It's made of lime. Corona and ad agency Cramer-Krasselt have put up a fun billboard in New York City which—on certain nights of the month, from a certain angle—makes the waxing crescent moon look like a slice of lime resting in a Corona bottle. The next public viewing of "Luna Corona," at 15th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan, will happen this Friday and Saturday nights, if you're interested. For the promo video below, the agency trots out scientific types, who explain in hushed tones how difficult it is to get the precision just right for this. I'm not an astronomer, but wouldn't it be easy to line up the moon and the bottle throughout the evening by walking around with your camera to a different spot on the street? The billboard is cool enough on its own without making it seem too much like a true celestial event.
Drones are in the news for all sorts of horrible reasons, but Domino's might salvage its reputation somewhat by eventually—someday—using them to deliver pizza. The company's DomiCopter—a joint effort by U.K. drone specialist AeroSight, Big Communications and creative agency T + Biscuits—is an eco-friendly machine capable of carrying pizzas in heatwave bags for impressive distances without refueling, similar to how a swallow would carry a coconut. Sadly, it's also a threat to the labor force of guys who get stoned in their cars and forget where you live.
Beef jerky raining down from the sky. We've all dreamed about it. I'm pretty sure it's prophesied in the Bible somewhere. Well, Jack Link's and ad agency Carmichael Lynch brought the fantasy to life on Tuesday night to celebrate the second annual National Jerky Day, which, of course, is today (as if you didn't already know). Thousands of Jack Link's packages with tiny parachutes were dropped from a helicopter over the Omaha Champions Village baseball complex. This is what passes for entertainment in Nebraska. More salty, meaty events are planned for today nationwide. The brand's Sasquatch mascot will hand out samples at the Hollywood & Highland Center, though passersby might just think it's Kevin Smith. The jerky drop was the culmination of "Operation Sky Meat," which featured teaser videos of a pigeon, plane, rocket and radio-controlled toy chopper attempting to sky-drop Jack Link's products, though all climaxed in fiery explosions. Yes, I spoiled the endings, and I've had a crap attitude through this entire post. It is Jerky Day, after all.
Jell-O's new "Jigglevision" social campaign from Crispin Porter + Bogusky is not quite as titillating as it sounds. You write a brief message on the brand's Facebook app using various "Jigglevision" patterns as camouflage, then share the note with friends via email or social media. Recipients decode the message by reading it through a red Jell-O gelatin snack lid. Just like they do at the NSA! Integrating social and real-word elements is cool, in theory. But if someone sent me a Jell-O jiggle-message, my first and last thought would be: #FML. Also, needing a Jell-O lid to play implies that you have to actually buy some product. Come on, that's not what social media is about! Kids will probably love this modern spin on a throwback idea (assuming they don't make a sticky mess of the computer), but to me it just feels a little insubstantial. Then again, given the product, what did I expect?
After years of weirdness and grotesquerie, Skittles has found its calling—breaking Grandma's knickknacks. This enjoyable interactive YouTube video from DDB Chicago features a young man who breaks a porcelain unicorn after it promises it will turn into Skittles if he does so. Naturally, the interactive part involves clicking on, and watching the guy break, a bunch of other stuff, including two frogs, two birds and a monkey. It's pretty fun, and I'm glad to see Skittles run those anarchic creative tendencies of theirs through some quality control. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Mars/Skittles Agency: DDB, Chicago Ewan Paterson: Chief Creative Officer Mark Gross: ECD Alex Zamiar: ACD/Art Director Jonathan Richman: ACD/Copywriter Will St. Clair: Exec. Producer Jon Ellis: Exec. Digital Producer Matt Green: Producer Scott Terry: Production Manager Director: Harold Einstein, Station Film Editorial: Beast Editorial
Zombies, beach bodies, Michael Jackson, Street Fighter 2. This might just be the best ad ever made for a product that doesn't exist. The four-minute video below, masquerading as a promo for an energy drink called Ibizious, was actually created by Spanish production studio Limon Estudios to launch a new nightclub called Amnesia on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. The lengthy clip is a bizarre and hypnotic mashup of '80s pop culture, with cameos from the original Nintendo Game Boy, hot-pink sports cars and denim jackets. It's not until a good three minutes in that we segue to footage of Carnival-esque debauchery, which I would assume is from the nightclub, scheduled to open this Saturday.
A McDonald's campaign that's so playful and pleasing that you want to watch it again and again? This is not happening! This is not happening! I figured I'd be snug in my grave, providing a happy meal for worms, before I'd ever have to write a glowing review of this company's advertising. And yet here I am, impressed by the savvy approach New York shop Translation takes in its "Think with your mouth" videos for the Big Mac.
These eight short clips employ different styles of music and animation to great effect. They riff on enough familiar pop-culture themes and memes to delight, or at least intrigue, viewers of all ages, yet seem fresh and innovative in their own right.
In "Dreams," a Big Mac glides over canyons, perhaps through time and space, to hang out with chanting, disembodied heads high above planet Earth. "Mouthopia" finds the sandwich resting on a bucolic hill as birds chirp and coo and friendly dinosaur-creatures stop by for a visit. Mac's the guest of honor in "Mouth Soirée," as glitter flies, shiny balloons bounce and funky dance beats reverberate. "Instructions" is the simplest of all, advising us to put the Big Mac in our mouths as the camera lingers on the sandwich and a happy-happy bubble-gum-type chorus sings in the background. Those are my personal favorites, but all the clips are pretty satisfying.
A key to their success is the lack of overt "yum-yum" moments or calls to action. None are needed. This is the Big Mac, itself iconic, and placing the meaty mainstay at the center of such sensory hijinks is all the sales pitch you need.
Each spot can stand on its own—but they work best as a unit, viewed in no particular order. The overall impact is giddy, trippy, both retro and futuristic—as if the psychedelic journey in 2001: A Space Odyssey led not to the farthest reaches of the mysterious cosmos but to the local Mickey D's, where a tasty treat awaits. Damn you, McDonald's, I'm likin' it!
First, Coca-Cola tried to thaw relations between India and Pakistan. Now, the brand has created bottles that are guaranteed to melt in your hands. Foodbeast gives a chilly reception to Coke's bottles made of ice, pointing to potential hygiene issues. But I can see folks warming to the offbeat promotional items, introduced in sunny Colombia just in time for beach season. There's no denying that the containers are … cool. Usually you have to go to a restaurant to get watered-down soda. Now you can enjoy it straight from the bottle. A red Coke-logo band lets you hold the frozen flask without chilling your hand too much, and doubles as a keepsake bracelet, because who wouldn't want one of those? Seriously, though, the brand's latest foray into innovative packaging (following the split-can idea) carries a certain ironic symbolism—with one of consumer culture's most famous icons, the Coca-Cola bottle, drip-drip-dripping away through customers' fingers, leaving only an advertisement (that band with the logo) behind. Now that's what I call pop art! Agency: Ogilvy Colombia.
"If you're wondering where the beef is, we have it, and we'd never deprive you of it." Thanks for the tip, Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's! Your straight-faced and earnest delivery of that line in a video message about McDonald's move to drop the Angus Third Pounder from its menu has restored my faith in humanity. Purists might complain that you're co-opting Wendy's classic tagline to zing McDonald's, but purity has no place whatsoever in the QSR world. Just kidding. I hope. Anyway, Puzder shines in the clip as he addresses disgruntled McD's customers, reads some of their whiny tweets and heartily chomps down on a Carl's Jr. 100% Angus Six Dollar Burger. He takes a hearty, executive bite. I can see why this guy is CEO. Also, his signature graces full-page ads from 72andSunny that ran this week in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Both the video and print ads prompt folks to visit ReclaimYourAngus.com (don't mistype that) and download $1-off coupons for the Six Dollar Burger. Hmm, let me see … subtract the 1 from the 6, and hey, now it should only cost $5! But it's even less, because, despite the name, the Six Dollar Burger actually starts at $4.49 pre-coupon. Kinda strange … still, I've got no beef with that.
There's nothing subtle about Red Bull the drink—it gives you wings, after all—but Red Bull the marketer decided to keep its messaging low-key around a recent New York entertainment/pop-culture event. Title sponsorship aside, the brand promoted its two-week Red Bull Music Academy mostly with logo-free wallscapes, subway and outdoor ads, wild postings, website takeovers and a free, daily, non-advertorial, 80,000-circulation newspaper. (Sample story: "Celluloid Heroes: New York Cinema and Its Soundtracks.") The omnipresent, art-heavy campaign, from Brooklyn-based ad agency Doubleday & Cartwright, pointed local music fans to the academy's collaborations, performances, workshops and labs, using spokesman Questlove as a focal point. (See some of the work in progress in the video below.) Attendance was reportedly strong, propping up the idea of content marketing as a way to speak to hard-to-corral hipsters and young music lovers.
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